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Interesting, it loaded just fine in the text-only "links" browser for me.
I found part of the problem: #content { padding-top: 53px; z-index: 0; visibility: hidden; } They're obviously flipping attributes around in scripting. So, keeping with the theme of "no interface", disabling style sheets for this site will let the content display. Brilliant!
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My grandfather, a regular country man, is horrorized by the amount of choices he has. Nowadays there is a remote for the TV with a lot of buttons, another for the video decoder, with more buttons, and another for the radio, with yes, more buttons. He was used to have a machine which worked upon being switched on. The TV had buttons labeled 1-10 for the ten channels. The radio only needed a dial and a volume slider. H…
My grandparents always lament how complicated things are these days. They too just want a simple 1-10 and on/off remote. These do exist, but I keep reminding them why it's not possible for them: they have cable. And a DVR. And a DVD player. And a sound bar. In the days of simple on/off TVs, these didn't exist. I know they're not going to give up the Food Network, ESPN, Nickelodeon for the great-grandkids, CSI, etc. T…
On/off? Make everything power efficient, turn off after some idle time or detecting that no one is around, reliable auto power on across devices (HDMI-CEC is terribly unreliable), reduce "on" times to no more than two seconds, etc. (requiring a full minute for a TV to boot is insane)
Fast forward / rewind? Reuse left/right arrows. Heck Netflix on my TV doesn't even let you use the dedicated fast forward / play / etc buttons - you have to use the d-pad.
Number pad / channel control? Depends on the person. Cable's dying though, so it makes slightly less sense each day.
3D button? Detect whether glasses are being used. Or develop useful non-eyestrain inducing 3D in the first place.
Widescreen button? Ditch legacy hookups already!
Closed caption button? Who wants to toggle this often enough to warrant a dedicated button? (Yes I know broadcasters are retarded enough that you need to, you shouldn't need to though)
Device selection? Maybe one input selection button. But the button presses should always go to the intended device without having to push another button on the remote. Yes, HDMI-CEC sucks for this again (big surprise)
But there is an army of UI designers fighting against common sense. I'm sure we'll hear from some of them in this thread.
djb nailed this problem on the head when he wrote about the UNIX interfaces. Quoting rules, special characters... it's a minefield even if you are a "UNIX command line guru". There's a high cognitive price to pay if you are trying to avoid all mistakes using this interface.
Solution: Remove the user interfaces. Programs interface with each other, not the user.
Non-interactive = less work. You start the system. It runs. There is no interaction. No ongoing cognitive price to pay other than monitoring.
And this is only the command line. Dare we look at the price imposed by GUI's?
Imagine a slide show where you had to click each and every time you want to see a new slide. Nice CSS! Wow, that Javascript is amazing! The page is so beautiful! Click, click, click. (Developers rejoice: We can track the clicks!) Now imagine you are the user and the slide show is 10,000 slides. Forget it.
Mechanize? Perl, Python, Ruby? JQuery? Give me a break. Why should people even have to waste their time writing such things?
Hey no problem! The kind developers decide to add an option to run the show on auto-pilot. Hurray. No more interaction is needed.
Think again.
Now imagine you have view 10,000 different slideshows to view and each one has a different way to start the auto-pilot mode based on the developer's own idea of "user experience".
You are right back where you started. Find the auto-pilot button. 10,000 times. Interaction.
A "slide show" is just a random example. You can apply this almost any sort of information intake where "interfaces" like GUI's are involved.
Go to a library and watch people trying to use various computer databases. In almost all cases, you will see them spending noticeable effort just to find things to click, and reading onscreen instructions. Every database is different. Every interface is unique. End-users: make 'em work.
The entire web is like this. Every web developer wants users to interact. Why? It's too much damn work. For users.
Will it ever change? Doubtful.
There is an entire industry built around forcing users to interact regardless of whether it is truly necessary.
For every person working to build an automated system there are two more building a system that forces user interaction.
Sometimes nerds, e.g. those familiar with Lisp or Scheme, say "everything is a list". Can mere mortals who know nothing of "programming" make lists? Is there any literate person on the planet who hasn't made a list?
"List processing".
Too _boring_. (It certainly isn't too _difficult_. Even the grandmother who can't use a computer can still make lists just fine.)
I know, let's build an "interface"! For humans!
Good grief.
I think the main problem is that programs are designed by programmers who think that the users are idiots. Programs designed for programmers have a much leaner interface. e.g. think about accounting applications: You had trained data typists in the 60s, who typed the accounting records in a format, that can be directly processed in a batch oriented way. You had 3270 terminals in the 70s, for trained typists, to enter…
1. The user who can learn to use vi and AWK.
2. In many cases it is they the developers who can't figure out how to use vi and AWK. Their solution is to conclude no one else will be able to use these programs either, because... "all users are idiots".
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Pretty far. Imagine one day not having a remote for your tv at all, and just looking at a certain spot(camera) on the TV saying, "TV, turn on" "next channel, next channel" "louder". That would completely eliminate the need for a UI or menu or remote.
It would get rid of the remote, but it doesn't get rid of the interface. And who wants to talk over a movie you're watching just to change the volume?
I'm curious just how far down the rabiit hole you can take this philosiphy. Just how many APIs and programming interfaces and other interaction points of a computer can be eliminated or automated away or even made to adapt to user preferences? What would this mean for the divide between the Operating System and its Applications?
Pretty far. Imagine one day not having a remote for your tv at all, and just looking at a certain spot(camera) on the TV saying, "TV, turn on" "next channel, next channel" "louder". That would completely eliminate the need for a UI or menu or remote.
If I sit down in the morning it should have learnt based on all previous mornings that I chose the morning news that I want to watch news.
If I sit down with a bowl of popcorn it should open the movies selection and let me take over using an interface from there.
If I sit down with my girlfriend it should filter the movie selection based on our previously recorded viewing history so we get the best movies for us both — if its just me it can hide all those romance chick flicks.
If I sit down wearing my Liverpool jersey and Liverpool is in fact playing a game or is mentioned in any program description it should default to showing me that.
Theres a whole lot that can be read from the environment of the device, quite a bit is technological feasible as of today (identifying a person by means of a camera and keeping track of viewing habits) and some that are slightly further out (reading your mental activity to determine that looking at the TV meant you intended to watch it.
A big thing here for me is automated personalization I think, this is a very viable next step.